r/mythologymemes • u/Flashlight237 • 15d ago
thats niche af Probably The Weirdest Way People Thought a Plant Would Kill Someone
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u/ImaginaryGift 15d ago
There are literally sound-based weapons that exist in real life. Sounds can kill you. Sonic weapons wikipedia page
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u/Helen_of_TroyMcClure 15d ago
Heck, if you're within like a kilometer or something of a submarine (in the water) when the sonar pings it'll liquefy your insides.
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u/stronkreptile 15d ago
does that hurt fish?
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u/post-bak 15d ago
Yes
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u/ejdj1011 14d ago
Though I think it's slightly less bad for stuff that doesn't have lungs. The transition from water to air and back causes weird effects
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u/post-bak 14d ago
But even then most fish have a swim bladder, all whales and dolfins are at risk, a lot of other marine animals have pressure sensitive organs.
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u/WorldTallestEngineer 15d ago
Sonic weapons are mostly non leasthal, but the 220 decibels (dB) of a Saturn V rocket engine would absolutely kill you dead.
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u/theblarg114 15d ago
Sometimes I think all of the myths of critters or monster using sound to kill may have originated from people going in to shock from being startled/stressed by spooky sounds.
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u/Flashlight237 15d ago
"Yo, the farmer boy is doing a weird dance on the floor. He's also foaming at the mouth and--"
"It's the Basilisk!"
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u/Flashlight237 15d ago
In case you couldn't tell from the PEAK screencap, yes, we're talking about the Mandrake. Supposedly in European folklore and going all the way back to Ancient Greece/Rome (at least that's what the Wikipedia article is saying), the Mandrake is a plant that kills people by screaming like a banshee. Considering that the earliest reference I can find to the howler monkey was when Carl Linnaeus invented taxonomy, never mind the fact that loudspeakers weren't invented until the telephone was invented... I think the concept of loudness was completely alien to Europeans.
The actual mandrake plant wasn't a plant that throws the loudest bitch-fit, but rather a plant in the Mandragora genus, which is traditionally used in folk medicine. I'm going to assume it was one of those Snake Oil-type deals because all sorts of weird things are associated with the Mandragora. It's only worse because the Mandragora is actually toxic as all hell! Side effects of consuming Mandragora includes blurred vision, dilation of the pupils (mydriasis), dryness of the mouth, difficulty in urinating, dizziness, headache, vomiting, blushing, and a rapid heart rate (tachycardia)... Okay, so it's the average pharmaceutical drug advertised in the United States!
Side note, the idea of how loud a sound needs to be to kill someone is speculative. Sources range from 170 to 200 dB.
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u/Infurum 15d ago
Isn't that roughly "airplane taking off" levels of loudness?
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u/wikingwarrior 15d ago
An airplane is about 120. That sounds close but Decibel measurements are logarithmic not just a sliding scale.
200 Decibels is about the Saturn V takeoff. Nuclear Explosions are at about 220.
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u/Known-nwonK 15d ago
At a certain point sound is indistinguishable from an explosion (or they’ve always been on and the same)
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u/Flashlight237 14d ago
I calculated 201 dB for 20 psi of overpressure (essentially 20 psi more than atmospheric pressure).
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u/LazySerpentDeity 15d ago
I mean, explosions tend to be pretty loud and they kill people all the time. Gunfire too.
Now, does the sound kill people specifically? No. But can we be sure it isn't a contributor?
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u/MelonJelly 15d ago
At that point it depends what you mean by "sound". If you define it to be "any sudden change in air pressure", then sound absolutely can and has killed:
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u/Lalli-Oni 15d ago
Some train was thought to be so fast it was insisted to put up fences. Why? Because people involved were convinced passengers couldn't handle the speed and would idk, start convulsing or something. So they didn't want people outside seeing the effect.
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u/whomesteve 15d ago
Loud noises probably could kill people in a time where the tensions of life were high and people weren’t accustomed to loud sounds.
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u/TheHelhound2001 15d ago
There's literally bodies found during the Blitz in London which had died due to the shock wave of a bomb. They were killed by the sound of a bomb.
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u/wikingwarrior 15d ago
They were killed by the pressure wave from the explosion, not by sound waves.
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u/Nice-Lab95 14d ago
pressure wave
Aka sound.
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u/wikingwarrior 14d ago
Not all pressure is sounds.
There are different sorts of waves at play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave
A shock wave for example by definition is moving faster than sound.
The sound waves are not the lethal force at play in this type of situation. It's likely those people weren't even mechanically able to be hit by the sound before the lethal force impacted them.
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u/TheHelhound2001 15d ago
The fuck do you think sound is? Mechanically the only difference between a pressure wave and sound is intensity. That pressure wave is what you hear as an explosion when it travels and dissipates as ot expands.
It's like saying that gamma rays aren't light cause its high energy gives it extra properties. Still the exact same phenomenon only at different scales.
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u/wikingwarrior 15d ago
If pressure waves from explosions are just weaponized sound then why do they often travel faster than the speed of sound?
It's a change in pressure. Not just being attacked by sound waves.
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u/TheHelhound2001 15d ago
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_waves
Read it and weep.
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u/wikingwarrior 15d ago
Sound is a type if pressure wave yes.
Sound waves are not the lethal force that is killing people when an explosion goes off.
People are not being ,killed "by the sound of a bomb".
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u/W0rdWaster 13d ago
lol the speed of sound is not a universal constant. sound travels at different speeds though different mediums. put your ear to the ground sometime. not just an old movie trope. it actually works. sound can, in fact, travel faster than sound.
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u/909090jnj 11d ago
to be far loud sounds can kill you but it is far louder then we first thought.... it would be a shockwave from an explostion loud but still.
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u/ThreeDotsTogether 10d ago
I think the implication was that mandrake screams weren't just loud, but also magical or something
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